One of the challenges for digital merchandising is how to bridge the gap between attracting attention of potential customers and engaging with those customers. One of the attempts to bridge this gap is the Tesco Virtual Supermarket, which allows customers to buy groceries to be delivered later by using their mobile devices to capture QR codes associated with virtual products as represented by imagery replicates of products. This method works well for people buying basic products, such as groceries, in a fast-paced environment with one benefit being time-saving.
For discretionary purchases, however, it can be a challenge to convert a potential customer or hesitant shopper to a confident buyer. One example is the photo kiosk operation at public attractions such as theme parks, where customers can purchase photos of themselves on a theme park ride. While the operators have invested in equipment and personnel trying to sell these high-quality photos to customers, empirical evidence suggests that their photo purchase rate is low, resulting in a low return on investment. The main reason appears to be that most customers opt to use their mobile devices to take snapshots from the photo preview displays, instead of purchasing the photos.
For a typical digital signage or kiosk, the visual representation of merchandise is targeted to help promote the merchandise. For certain merchandise, however, such a visual representation could actually impede the sales. In the case of the preview display at theme parks, while it is necessary for potential customers to preview and decide whether to purchase the merchandise (digital or physical photo), it also exposes the merchandise that can be copied, albeit at lower quality, by the customers with their cameras. Such action renders the original content valueless to the operator despite the investment.